it that it works ONLY for business-minded communists -- AND capitalists -- at the expense of EVERYONE else.


rocktivity

You know that having been there or reading comics ?

I guess if you want to call the Cuban News Agency ( http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/who-we-are ) the comics, a lot of people would not disagree with you.

I try to inform my opinion by reading Cuban press releases. And the other ways that I try to use to understand the political, social, and economic world outside of my immediate physical presence. By visiting news and commentary web sites all across the spectrum. Watching documentaries.

Growing up, yes, I was an American kid with American experiences. But still, I did not just blindly accept what I was told. I was listening to Radio Havana and Radio Moscow (along with other first, second, and third world stations) on the shortwave. I was taught, and I accepted at a very young age that I was never going to know everything about anything, so do the best with what I've got and try to stay open to new facts, no matter how badly they tear up your current beliefs.

But enough about me...any chance of debating the accuracy and/or points about the global market oriented reforms underway in Cuba? Should they be considered and evolution of socialist thought, as opposed to a reversal of it? Or perhaps temporary strategic tacking to rebuild the coffers of the omnipresent state economy ("Hey! Let's get the world to drop a bunch of resources on our shores, and then we will use loopholes to expropriate without compensation anyhow just like 1959&quot ?

CAMAGÜEY.— The certainty that modifications proposed in the new Foreign Investment Law in no way indicate the sale of the country, or a return to the past, was emphasized here by National Assembly deputies from the provinces of Camagüey, Las Tunas and Ciego de Ávila.

Before analyzing the legal document, the people’s representatives heard a detailed report on the policy to be approved, addressing its contents and the principal changes proposed, presented by Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, minister of Foreign Trade and Investment.

“Far from indicating a step back, it offers greater guarantees and incentives for foreign investment and ensures the attraction of capital which will contribute effectively to the objectives of sustainable development and recovery of the national economy, which today has a strategic connotation for the country,” the Minister said.

The participation of foreign capital will be oriented toward diversification and expansion of exports, the substitution of imports, modernization, infrastructure construction and new technology, through comprehensive projects which will generate related lines of production.

http://www.granma.cu/idiomas/ingles/cuba-i/20marzo-asamblea.html

I've been twice each time for 3 weeks - no problems going there being English same as for Canadians, Russians , Chinese and the whole of the rest of Europe.

The people maybe be relatively poor but they are also generally contented.

"Rodrigo Malmierca emphasized the importance of strengthening aspects of the law which favor foreign investment, support the country’s financial reputation and gain the confidence of investors by providing transparency, clear regulations and incentives."

I'm sorry, but that sounds to me like something that could come out of a middle American Chamber of Commerce press release.

Cuba is like no other place, right now. Time to put away your preconceptions.

But do I get to at least ask clarifying questions? Can I detail what I've been taught and what I think about what I am reading, and lay it open to analysis?

Your comment contains a lie.
Only US based entities haven't received compensation - because US law forbids it.
All other entities that had expropriations and sought compensation have settled w/the gov't of Cuba.

FrodosPet, don't come here to grind your rather uninformed ax. Rather, inform yourself.

It is clear the the Cuban government is recognizing that expropriations is bad business, and that is why they are specifically addressing that with the new law.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/26/cuba-investment-idUSL1N0MN0TJ20140326

~ snip ~

The proposed law includes a clause that bans expropriations except in cases of public interest previously established by the government, in which case investors would be compensated.

~ snip ~

It would also guarantee the free transfer of profits or dividends outside of Cuba without paying additional tax, and allows investment in any sector of the economy except education and healthcare.

~ snip ~

The current law and new law allow for 100 percent foreign-owned companies and do not explicitly exclude Cubans who are citizens of other countries, but in practice Cuba has in most cases insisted on 51 percent ownership of joint ventures and has not allowed Cubans abroad or its own citizens to invest, except in small businesses.

~ snip ~

I think that the paras you left out answer some questions ...

Of course they are going to place the most incentives on joint ventures. The key to me, in comparison to the old days, is the fact that they are at least professing to be willing to relax regulations and allow capital repatriation.

What are you talking about?
Foreign companies currently do business in Cuba and repatriate their profits.
If they sell their interest in said improved joint-venture properties, they repatriate 49 percent.

Perhaps this is a policy that they are attempting to correct? That they are realizing it is a major disincentive for investors?

http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/economy/1040-foreign-investment-a-priority-for-cuban-development

~ snip ~

Experts say that it is also necessary to make some aspects more flexible such as the hiring of labor by implementing a better and more appropriate taxation and salary policy. They also suggest to look at money remittances in terms of foreign financing for the private sector and to draw up a policy linked to this capital flow in favor of foreign investment.

If the arrangements were so bad then I guess we'd see few joint venture hotels in Cuba. Oh .... wait ...

especially with the ocean in the background.

U.S. Wary Of Push To Buy Claims To Confiscated Property In Cuba

BILLY HOUSE The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 17, 2008 | Updated: May 18, 2013 at 05:29 PM



WASHINGTON - Estela Roberts and her family have always hoped they would be compensated one day for their property in Cuba seized after that country's 1959 revolution.

Roberts, 62, whose family eventually relocated to Miami and then to Tampa, still remembers her family's beautiful home in Havana, down to the "marble staircase with some ironwork."

Along with a summer home in Tarara, a small sugar plantation, a bank and a tobacco store, the total value of the family's confiscated property has been estimated to exceed $3 million.

Decades later, Roberts and her siblings have yet to receive a dime; frozen relations between the United States and Cuba have prevented their claim from being resolved.

More:
http://tbo.com/news/central-tampa/2008/jun/17/na-speculators-seeking-to-purchase-cuba-claims-ar-132002/

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
It's been common knowledge, I thought, for ages, even after the thick layer of propaganda whoppers has been in place for so long. I'm would have thought most people saw through most, if not all of it long, long ago!

... when the US gov't and mafia backed brutal henchman Batista and his cronies abandoned their palaces and the Cuban people began the process of reconstruction of their sovereignty.

FrodosPet ,when I see comments like "I hope I CAN go to a free Cuba someday" I'm not sure if you're spouting anti Cuba rhetoric, or condemning the US's policy of banning regular travel to Cuba by US citizens and resident aliens.

Usually I know that posters with comments like that have an ax to grind here, but I'm not sure what you are saying in that comment.
Care to clarify?
Thanks.

Well, to Gitmo anyways and I don't mean the prison either, I was there before the prison was.

Posted on Monday, 03.24.14
2 Guantánamo guards accused of sexually assaulting junior soldiers

By Carol Rosenberg

crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com


The military is putting two Guantánamo guards on trial in Texas on charges alleging they sexually assaulted junior soldiers at the remote outpost at a time when commanders were grappling with the prison hunger strike, the military said Monday.

The separate courts martial will take place next month by order of Army Maj. Gen. Joseph P. DiSalvo, the commanding officer of Army South, the headquarters unit for personnel activities of soldiers at the U.S. detention center in southeast Cuba.

In one case, 1st Sgt. Richard A. Smith, no age provided, is accused of raping a sergeant in January 2013 as well as sexually assaulting two other women at the base several months later. Smith, described as a reservist from Orlando, was activated to service about 10 weeks before the alleged rape.

Smith also faces charges alleging he bit the neck of one woman, a corporal, and groped another woman for whom no rank was provided, suggesting she was a civilian contractor.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/24/4015701/2-guantanamo-guards-accused-of.html#storylink=cpy

How exceedingly odd the Miami Herald is the only US paper which carried this story.

But what is the relevance to Cuban economic reforms via liberalization of foreign investment rules?

I am seriously here to engage in a thinking exercise. To seek out different perspectives and find alternative sources of information.

You follow Latin America quite closely. Can you offer your perspective and perhaps some additional information on this new law? Is it a game changer for Cuba, or just a mild adjustment in the standard operating procedure?

... what does your false expropriation settlement conjecture and your "Castro communism is fighting hard to stay alive" commentary have to do with that? Pretty much any comment Judi has on Cuba has more relevance than your uninformed conjecture.

Now, back to the serious thinking ...

Yes, this is a departure from the rigid "centralized Stalinist economy" so many here fantasize - but, post Revolution Cuba has always had a mixed economy. In actuality, it is a tweak. Believe me, if the US's travel sanctions on Americans were to be lifted, there would be hundreds of hotel/resort companies seeking to get in there to do monumental business under whatever terms Cuba sets ... the profits are still there (and, contrary to your conjecture, they can repatriate their profits).

Cheers.

of recognition that support for the embargo is plunging as the older embargo-supporting population dies away, and they are going to have to face the reality that NO ONE is going to support it very, very soon.

It could actually mean they are trying, as always, to manage public perception, in this case to expect to see things a little different in Cuba when they start going there, than they have been trained to believe they are.

In other words, trying to alter everyone's expectations to avoid being caught as the liars many people already know them to be.

You're right, it has always been a mixed economy since the first day of the post revolutionary period.